Because baking is a science!

Tag Archives: eclair

While Matchachoco was restaurant hopping in Vancouver, I was out in Toronto on a sweet escape (that was just a euphemism for “I had too much sweets!”).

Last August, I went with a friend to Sweetery, Toronto’s inaugural sweets food festival. It was a two-day event featuring various sweets from local food vendors and George Brown culinary students, as well as several fun activities involving sweet treats. Although Sweetery was a small food festival compared to other food festivals in Toronto, it didn’t stop us from getting our sweet tooth fix.

Featured here are pastries made by George Brown students enrolled in the Advanced French Patisserie Program:

I had one of the éclairs made by one of the George Brown students. It was an éclair cassis filled with a lemon mascarpone cream, topped with a black currant glaze and a lemon almond streusel. It had the perfect balance of sweetness, tanginess, and creaminess (though I might be a bit biased because I love lemon and mascarpone cheese!). I also loved finishing glitter touch to it. Having a personal preference for desserts with a bit of sourness, this was one of the sweets I really enjoyed that day.

My friend and I shared the mille feuille with poached rhubarb, also made by one of the George Brown students. The presentation of this dessert stood out to me because I rarely see a mille feuille presented this way. It was a refreshing twist from the typical mille feuille.

Going through the food truck selections at Sweetery, we decided to try The Original Chimney’s food
truck. We got the Holy Chimnnoli, which was their own spin of a cannoli. The Holy Chimnolis were filled with the typical ricotta cheese filling you’ll find in a cannoli, but instead of a cannoli shell, the Holy Chimnnolis were made with their signature Chimney cake

The Chimney cakes were soft and tender on the inside with a very slight crisp on the outside. My friend and I both enjoyed them; however, midway through eating them, the sweetness suddenly caught on to us. We suddenly felt that it was too sweet, especially with the generous sprinkling of powdered sugar on the Chimney cakes.

Another dessert we had that day was the Vietnamese coffee mille crepe from Catering Diva, one of the vendors at Sweetery. It was made with 20 layers of crepe filled with layers of cream in-between. Although it was a bit smaller and limp compared to other mille crepes I’ve had before, this was one of the best desserts we had that day. The mille crepe was creamy and each bite melts in your mouth. It had a strong coffee flavour, but it wasn’t too overpowering, which I really liked. My friend particularly liked this one the most because it wasn’t overly sweet.

We also had a lychee snow cone from Sweet Snow Shave Ice (I forgot to take a photo unfortunately). I was a bit impressed with their snow cones because they were flavourful, in contrast to the bland snow cones that I’ve been too familiar with. The ice was also light and finely crushed. Flavour-wise, however, I strangely found the lychee flavor almost had a cotton candy taste. I thought it was the right amount of sweetness, but my friend found it too sweet for his liking.

Overall, we had a good run of trying different desserts at Sweetery. I’m hoping next year’s will not only be sweeter, but bigger with more variety.